Gawker has a great post about FOX News military analyst Tom McInerney's ridiculous attempts to promote the F-22 Raptor, which just happens to be manufactured by McInerney's client, Northrup Grumman, as the solution to pirates.

It doesn't take an Air Force general to see how bizarre McInerney's military reasoning is. The analyst told Fox the F-22, at $146 million each, would be great against pirates due to its fast "reaction time" and 20 milimeter cannon.

He neglected to mention virtually every U.S. fighter made in the last 30 years carries such a cannon (usually the six-barrel M-61 Vulcan), including the F/A-18 Hornet already in use by the U.S. Navy (pictured left). He also fails to mention that, no matter how fast the F-22 might be, it can't be based off an aircraft carrier. So its reaction time could never be as good (from a land base on, say, the Arabian Peninsula) as a Hornet or other existing Navy jet floating in the waters nearest the pirates.

Finally, McInerney fails to mention that, though capable of ground attack, the F-22 is optimized for air-to-air operations, i.e., shooting down other fighters.

The idea of going after hostage-taking pirates with an advanced fighter jet and a high-altitude drone is absurd on its face.